Bloq, a provider of blockchain technology solutions for global enterprises, announced that it has acquired Skry (formerly Coinalytics), a pioneer in blockchain analytics, to accelerate the development of its analytics capabilities and open the door for Artificial Intelligence (AI) on its platform. With the acquisition, Bloq wants to enhance its suite of analysis tools and position itself to maximize the value of blockchain data sets through AI and machine learning.The Chicago-based company focuses on solving key business issues surrounding security, provenance, authentication and reconciliation. The new acquisition, whose detailed terms haven’t been disclosed, includes Skry’s intellectual property and team, which seems a perfect fit for Bloq’s focus on empowering better visibility and decision-making in a multi-blockchain, multi-network world.“Financial institutions will need a full suite of tools to take blockchain [technology]’s role from high-tech database to business-driver,” Bloq’s Co-Founder and Chairman Matthew Roszak explained to Bitcoin Magazine. “Skry’s technology adds a keystone layer of analytics to our current platform, and will open the door for enterprise blockchains to become as smart as they are efficient.”Bloq’s portfolio includes high-profile projects, such as a partnership with Deloitte to build blockchain software solutions for leading companies worldwide; a partnership with PwC Australia to launch Vulcan Digital Asset Services, a new fintech business platform to accelerate the adoption of digital money and assets; and the “Blockchain Operating System” BloqEnterprise. The company is a member of the Hyperledger Project, a collaborative cross-industry effort to advance blockchain technology, led by the Linux Foundation, to whose Board of Directors Jeff Garzik, co-founder and CEO of Bloq, was appointed in November.“Blockchain networks need more than a rudimentary finder or explorer,” said Garzik. “We’re ensuring that enterprises won’t have to ‘fly blind’ without a complete understanding of the performance, economics and irregularities of their underlying networks.”“Blockchain networks will create the greatest data sets we’ve ever seen,” added Roszak. “Leveraging machine learning techniques will enable faster and enhanced decision making, while uncovering insights and massive opportunities along the way.”In fact, the Skry platform leverages the awesome power of modern AI technology. According to the company, AI allows users to extract insights at a speed and scale that no human can on their own. “Through novel interfaces the Skry platform allows domain experts to supercharge their intuition with the power of machine intelligence,” notes the Skry website. “Deep Learning technologies are combined with behavioral, predictive, graph and descriptive-prescriptive analytics to not only learn from the past, but to anticipate and predict illicit activities, suspicious user behavior, fraud and anomalies.” Deep Learning indicates a subset of AI technology for machine learning.Formerly known as Coinalytics, in 2015, it raised $1.1 million in a seed round led by Palo Alto–based incubator The Hive. Skry rebranded in April 2016 and added top AI experts to its team. The announcement noted Skry’s intention to position itself at the forefront of applying AI and machine learning to turn blockchain data into actionable insights, “which will have a crucial impact on the future of this technology, beyond Bitcoin.” “Bloq is one of the few blockchain software companies with a comprehensive vision for what enterprise customers need to launch and manage blockchain networks and applications,” said Fabio Federici, former CEO and co-founder of Skry. “Its team stressed interoperability and painstakingly engineered its technology from day one to be blockchain-agnostic. I’m excited to have Skry be a part of that future.”It seems likely that the acquisition of Skry’s AI intellectual property and team will strengthen Bloq’s position as a leading provider of high-tech blockchain solutions for demanding clients. In fact, with more and more companies and institutions adopting blockchain-based solutions, and more and more complex, potentially critical data stored in distributed ledgers, there’s a growing need for sophisticated analysis methods, which AI technology can provide.The post Bloq Acquires Skry, Supercharges Blockchain Analytics With AI and Machine Learning appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

With both the Bitcoin Unlimited and Segregated Witness efforts far from reaching majority support and exploding transaction fees, the debate around how to scale Bitcoin continues on. One of the key arguments against bigger blocks and Bitcoin Unlimited is that a blocksize restriction is needed to create a healthy fee market. Dr Peter Rizun has been researching the economics of transaction fees in Bitcoin extensively and joined us to discuss what dynamics affect fees and why he thinks the blocksize limit will eventually fall.

In a televised speech at the launch of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance today, the platform's creator, Vitalik Buterin, delivered a speech focusing on why enterprise blockchains, generally seen as competitors, might have an interest in working more collaboratively. Announced today, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is a new group of major companies that plans to develop blockchain applications on ethereum (think Microsoft […]

A group of blockchain startups, financial institutions and other blockchain innovators is launching the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) to build, promote and broadly support Ethereum-based technology. The collective, which includes Intel, Microsoft, J.P. Morgan, Banco Santander and ConsenSys, will also launch a reference architecture, named EntEth 1.0.“This body is going to work on standardizing the technology for enterprise settings, and that will only help the public Ethereum main net,” Andrew Keys, head of global business development at ConsenSys, one of the founding members, told Bitcoin Magazine.EnterpriseEthereum is a public and permissionless blockchain, which means that anyone can use it for whatever they see fit. While this is useful — even needed — for certain types of applications, it is not always suited for others. In particular, financial institutions and enterprise-level organizations tend to fork Ethereum’s codebase, launching their own pilot projects rather than using the Ethereum blockchain itself.Keys revealed the launch of the EEA at the Distributed: Markets conference in Atlanta, Georgia.“Enterprises are already deploying Ethereum networks. They’re taking the open-source version of the protocol that’s used for the permissionless next-generation of the internet,” Keys told Bitcoin Magazine. “But there’s a difference between the permissionless next-generation of the internet, and permissioned private networks. Our position is that these enterprises shouldn’t be playing at the protocol level. They should be building applications on top. And all of this needs to be standardized.”This standardization process will now be led by the EEA, which consists of 30 members at launch. It has a rotating board that includes Accenture, Banco Santander, BlockApps, BNY Mellon, CME Group, ConsenSys, IC3, Intel, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft and Nuco. The additional founding members are AMIS, Andui, BBVA, brainbot technologies, BP, Chronicled, Credit Suisse, Cryptape, Fubon Financial, ING, The Institutes, Monax, String Labs, Telindus, Tendermint, Thomson Reuters, UBS, VidRoll and Wipro.“Like many financial institutions, Santander has been actively exploring the use of distributed ledger technology and Ethereum has been one of the platforms-of-choice on which to build proof-of-concepts and prototypes.” said Julio Faura, Head of Research & Development for Innovation at Banco Santander. “With its large developer community, 1.5 years of testing in a public environment, and multiple implementations, Santander is enthusiastic in its support of the goals of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and its goal of developing a single set of standards for using Ethereum in an enterprise setting.”EntEth 1.0At the heart of the EEA is a reference architecture, EntEth 1.0. EntEth 1.0 is a standard, not a product, and is designed specifically for the needs of enterprise. Compared to Ethereum itself, EntEth 1.0 will include a stronger focus on privacy, similar to J.P. Morgan’s private Ethereum implementation, Quorum. It will also include more extensive permissioning, allowing a customizable way by which information can be shared, with whom, and to what extent.And, perhaps most important, EntEth 1.0 will include “pluggable consensus.”“If you have a very strong consensus algorithm, you’re going to have very few transactions per second,” Keys said. “So if you’re in a permissionless network like Bitcoin or public Ethereum, you need that hard consensus. While if you’re in a private one, you don’t need it. So, depending on the type of transaction you’re in, you’ll be able to change the types of consensus algorithms.”As a unique option, EntEth 1.0 can also be plugged into the main Ethereum network. This lets users of enterprise versions of Ethereum utilize Ethereum’s consensus model: proof of work currently, perhaps proof of stake in the future. As such, the EEA believes it can complement and improve the existing Ethereum project to collectively develop industry standards and facilitate open-source collaboration with its member base.“This [consortium] is built because we believe in Vitalik [Buterin]’s vision, and we want to complement it at the enterprise level,” Keys concluded.Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum, looks forward to working with everyone involved in the alliance: “The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance project can play an important role in standardizing approaches for privacy, permissioning and providing alternative consensus algorithms to improve its usability in enterprise settings, and the resources the project and its members are contributing should accelerate the advancement of the Ethereum ecosystem generally.”The post Startups, Banks and Tech Giants Launch Enterprise Ethereum Alliance appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

At Anarchapulco we had one hell of a heated debate about BU vs Segwit. Roger Ver and Jake Smith with Bitcoin.com had to fend off quite a few opposing views. While Roger had a very level playing field Jake held his own against Trace Mayer, John Dilley, Tone Vays, Bruce Fenton and multiple others in the audience as well as online. All in all it made for some interesting conversation.

Welcome to Bitcoins and Gravy. On today?'?s show I am privileged to be speaking with John Bass, the Founder and CEO of Hashed Health. Hashed Health is a Nashville based healthcare technology company focused on accelerating the commercialization of blockchain and distributed ledger technology in healthcare. John and his team are coming up with next generation ideas to help break down those walls between care and commerce and rebuild the system in a way that is better for healthcare and better for patients.

WHAT IS HASHED HEALTH?

Hashed Health is leading a consortium of healthcare companies focused on accelerating meaningful innovation using blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. To empower its consortium members, Hashed Health provides value-added services such as product management, product development, regulatory guidance, and technology support services for blockchain solutions and blockchain networks. Based in Nashville, TN, Hashed Health?'?s healthcare experts focus on making sure the business problem drives the appropriate technical solution. We help members launch new industry level solutions more effectively and at lower cost. We also provide exposure to existing networks who are actively exploring, piloting, or using existing solutions.

Special thanks to Andreas Antonopoulos, the great moral compass of the Bitcoin community and a man of unfailing integrity and intelligence. Thank you Andreas for letting me broadcast your words of wisdom and for all you?'?ve taught me over the years.

And a shout out to the Bitcoins and Gravy Freelance Transcriptionist for his excellent and highly accurate work. Professional transcriptions of the show can be found on our website and to get in touch with The Freelance transcriptionist, just head over to

Special thanks to Alan Baird for his dobro, guitar and mandolin playing on many of the shows. Now that?'?s some pickin man! Thanks also to Alex Munoz Guijarro for his excellent pedal steel playing on many of our shows.

Interviews for this episode were recorded and edited by John Barrett at The Tree House Studio - Nashville, Tennessee. All shows are produced by John Barrett with the moral support of his trusty sidekick Maxwell Rascalnikov CoyoTe Rex, aka Max.

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In a move that raised eyebrows among tech policy advocates, Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) officially launched the Congressional Blockchain Caucus in early February. First announced in September of 2016, this bipartisan working group will target the policy advancement of blockchain-oriented technologies and digital currencies.In an official statement, Polis expressed his optimism about this next step for the caucus: “Blockchain [technology] has the potential to transform the 21st century economy,” Polis said. “Lawmakers need to understand that as the world rapidly changes, it’s our responsibility to ensure that we craft policies and adapt laws that match our ingenuity. Blockchain [technology]’s potential to reshape everything from the financial industry, to supply chains, to cybersecurity, to healthcare is something we should embrace. I look forward to the caucus’s upcoming policy briefings and meetings that will educate members of Congress on these innovative technologies.”Rep. Schweikert furthered those sentiments. “Open blockchain networks and distributed ledger technologies are still new, but it’s critical for members of Congress to begin comprehending both their current applications and future use cases. It is critically important the United States remain competitive regarding emerging technologies, and distributed ledger technology is the open, secure, efficient technology backbone we’ve been looking for.” The primary aim of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus is to educate, engage and offer research to assist policymakers in pursuing thoughtful regulatory approaches to the issues facing the rapidly growing blockchain network landscape. Polis’s cohort Schweikert replaced former Co-Chair of the Blockchain Caucus, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R–South Carolina), who was successfully confirmed as U.S. President Donald Trump’s budget director after a tight, heated vote. Rep. Mulvaney is widely seen as pro-Bitcoin and a major blockchain advocate. There is growing belief that his appointment will fuel the integration of blockchain technology into the U.S. government, even allowing Bitcoin to find a safe legal haven against onerous federal regulations. An Outside-the-Beltway PerspectiveSteven J. Ehrlich, associate at the New York–based Spitzberg Partners LLC, offered his insights to Bitcoin Magazine on the new caucus and the future of blockchain technology in government. Spitzberg Partners is a consultancy that assists clients in development, market entry and M&A strategies for Europe, North America and beyond.“I applaud the launch of the Congressional Blockchain Caucus and am happy to see that the issue will continue moving forward following the ascension of former Co-Chair Mick Mulvaney, with Rep. David Schweikert taking his place,” said Ehrlich. Ehrlich believes that having a formal mechanism to discuss the potential use cases and public policy implications of this technology is critical to achieving more mainstream diffusion of this information. He says that it will become harder to argue that this technology is strictly a law-enforcement issue or is exclusively useful for illicit activities if there is a dedicated group in Washington centered on promoting its use.“I think that the U.S. continues to face challenges regulating the industry and the outlook is uncertain. Moreover I believe it’s too early to make any broad assessments on what the impact of President Trump will be, but my initial outlook — although Mulvaney could temper it — is somewhat negative. Given his strong focus on security I see it as unlikely that he would give the benefit of the doubt to any technology, including virtual currencies, which has a whiff of impropriety.”From a policy and regulatory point of view, Ehrlich believes the initial focus will likely center around security and consumer protection. Above all else, he says, it is the responsibility of the government to protect its citizens from all threats, be it a terrorist attack, criminal activity or negligence. So that is the initial threshold that any blockchain application will have to cross. Back in September, Rep. Mulvaney said, “Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, the U.S. economy and the delivery of government services.” Ehrlich agreed but with a few qualifiers:“First, the end state being described here is a long ways out and will necessitate a series of trials and errors combined with a piecemeal approach across different industries. “Second, it is important to remember that we are not building these technology stacks from scratch. There are legacy systems across every industry that must be integrated, updated or replaced, which creates additional complications. “Third, we often use the terms blockchain or distributed ledger technologies as if they are monoliths, but they are not.” Ehrlich contends that there are many different platforms and ecosystems in development and at some point either one will win out or there will have to be a way for multiple blockchains to communicate with one another. “A siloed approach will not work at scale,” he said. According to Ehrlich, assuming that these hurdles are cleared, blockchain technology offers the potential to add transparency, speed and efficiency to virtually any industry that requires shared records or knowledge. “From a cybersecurity point of view, being able to have absolute certainty that your systems and records are maintaining their integrity and confidentiality is invaluable. Additionally, through the use of smart contracts and the transparency of blockchains, state and federal governments can more efficiently collect taxes, disburse benefits, track spending, etc.” Ehrlich cites what’s currently taking place in state governments as just one example, saying that it will be very interesting to follow developments in Delaware over the course of 2017, as they are already working on a live project involving smart contracts and their public archives. He says that the state has even loftier plans, including legally enforceable smart UCC filings, and expects the takeaways from these projects to reverberate throughout Washington and around the country.The post What the New Congressional Caucus Could Mean for Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Blockchain Madness, the annual intercollegiate blockchain game show tournament, is returning this March. The tournament is hosted by the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) and pits university blockchain clubs against each other in an elimination tournament to win one bitcoin, the Blockchain Cup and prestige for their university. This year, BEN has added a third conference for international universities, in addition to one conference for schools in the United States and one for schools in Canada.So far, there are ten blockchain teams of three student block-stars who have confirmed their participation, including four in each of the American and Canadian conferences and two in the international conference. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California–Berkeley, the University of Florida and the Georgia Institute of Technology are representing the United States. McGill University, the University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, the University of Toronto and the University of Wilfrid Laurier are representing Canada. The National Taiwan Normal University and BEN Netherlands are competing in the international conference.“Blockchain Madness is a great opportunity to test our blockchain knowledge and also have a chance to connect with other members of the blockchain community around the world, and we are very proud to be one of the first international teams represented in the international conference,” said Jean-Marc Turk, the founder of the blockchain club at the National Taiwan Normal University.According to Aaron Schwartz, the BEN director of global engagement, there might be more university teams that could still be added to the lineup in the next few days leading up to beginning of the tournament. Similar to last year, the tournament a friendly spirit of competition among the leaders of the blockchain clubs.“Blockchain Madness last year was hilarious and super fun. We’re ready to beat Canada this time and Make America Great Again,” said Max Fang, the president of Blockchain at Berkeley, who is competing for the second year in a row. Stepan Vorobiev, the president of the blockchain team from the University of Toronto, who is also competing in his second tournament, shares this sentiment. “We are glad that BEN is bringing Madness back. The industry grows significantly on a yearly basis and this is a fun way of staying up to date. We hope that this year we bring home the Blockchain Cup to Toronto!”“Competing with these major universities has brought a lot of excitement out of our community at McGill and it makes me very proud to help provide an avenue for McGill to become as forward thinking as possible,” said Harris Innes-Miller, the founder of the newly created McGill Students’ FinTech Association.“If you’ve been involved with BEN since its inception, you will know that Blockchain Madness is one of our most exciting events of the year,” said Siddarth Ramesh, the director of operations of the Blockchain Education Network. “At BEN, we’ve always believed that by gamifying blockchain education we can motivate students to push for paradigm shifts in their local communities. Through Blockchain Madness, we’re applying the same model to engage student clubs in competitive learning.” The format of this year’s tournament will be two head-to-head elimination matches to determine the winning team of the American and Canadian conferences, as well as a single head-to-head match to determine the winner of the international conference. The winning team of each conference will then all compete in a three-way final match to determine the winner. Each match will be set up to be similar to last year, with four categories of five questions, similar to Jeopardy. Teams choose questions until they get one wrong; then the question is passed to the other team to steal and it becomes the other team’s turn to pick questions. There are two “DISRUPT” tiles that introduce unknown elements into the game to help a losing team catch up or a winning team secure a victory. The last tile is the “Last Change,” where teams are able to wager as many points as they have before they see the question.MLG Blockchain, an enterprise blockchain development and consulting firm, is the title sponsor for the event. Other sponsors include Unsung, Distributed ID, MicroJasa and Aprisma. Kirk Brown, CEO of MicroJasa, said, “While in school they don’t teach you to smash existing models and disrupt legacy systems. They don’t teach you how to liberate from private economies that are controlled by institutions against financial autonomy. They don’t teach you not to set your goals by what others deem status quo. They also don’t teach you that banking networks can be innovated using new inventions like blockchain [technology] and cryptocurrencies: decentralized to distributed.”Each event will be livestreamed to the Blockchain Education Network YouTube channel. Trivia questions will be posted throughout the event to the BEN Twitter page, with a prize awarded to the individual who gets the most answers correct.This guest post was contributed by Michael Gord, founder and CEO of MLG Blockchain. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Bitcoin Magazine.The post Op Ed: 10 International Teams to Compete in Blockchain Madness appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Over the past year, there have been intense debates about the future of the Bitcoin network. These discussions have mostly revolved around the topic of scaling Bitcoin, and several proposals have been put forward to address the question of how the Bitcoin network will scale to be used by the billions of people and machines we have on this planet. These scaling proposals are not all mutually exclusive, but nearly all of them involve a fundamental change to the Bitcoin protocol that would require what is called a "hard fork." A hard fork is a change that would cause there to be multiple competingBitcoin networks, all but oneof which would die off as a majority of users decide to use the strongestnetwork.[1]

Because of the potential to split the network, such fundamental hard fork changes are not deployed often. Planned hard forks require an orchestrated software upgrade by multiple stakeholders in the Bitcoin network. Since Bitcoin is a decentralized system that is not controlled by any central authority, whether or not such an upgrade is deployed and adopted by the network is determined by several key decision-makers that must agree to the change: Bitcoin developers, economic Bitcoin nodes, bitcoin-holding users, and bitcoin miners.

Bitcoin Developers

Bitcoin developers are the first group that must be convinced that a hard fork change is necessary. If the maintainers of popular Bitcoin implementations do not accept a proposed change, the only remaining options are to fork an existing Bitcoin node software repository or start developing a new implementation from scratch. Convincing developers of an existing implementation can be politically challenging, and starting a new implementation from scratch is a herculean task. Forking an existing project is the easiest route, but still requires convincing a majority of the network to use the fork in order for the change to be adopted by all Bitcoin users.

Economic Bitcoin Nodes

Economic Bitcoin nodes arefull nodesthat accept Bitcoin in exchange for other forms of value and include Bitcoin exchanges, wallets, payment processors, and businesses that accept Bitcoin in exchange for goods, services, and othercurrencies. If economic nodes donot upgrade their full node software when a hard fork change is introduced, then blocks that are produced by miners who do choose to upgrade will not be considered valid bynodesthat have not upgraded and the blockchain will split. To everyone on the old chain, miners producing blocks with the newsoftware will lose the block reward to a competitor producing valid "old chain" blocks. Theeconomic majoritywill only choose to upgrade their software if they believe the change is a) beneficial for the long term value of Bitcoin and/or b) acceptable to most of their bitcoin-holding customers.

Bitcoin-Holding Users

Bitcoin-holding users that rely on the services of economic Bitcoin nodes have a choice of where to take their business. If an economic node such as an exchange, wallet, or merchant upgrades their Bitcoin node software to implement changes that their customers do not agree with, then those customers may choose to do business with another economic Bitcoin node instead. However, it is not always obvious what version of the Bitcoin software an economic Bitcoin node is running and so the best way for bitcoin-holding users to have influence over changes to the Bitcoin protocol is to run and rely on their own Bitcoin full node for block verification and transaction broadcasting. If a hard fork upgrade is proposed that a bitcoin-holding user does not want implemented, then they may voice their concern to the economic Bitcoin nodes they do business with in hopes of dissuading them from implementing the upgrade. Similarly, bitcoin-holding users can lobby the economic Bitcoin nodes they do business with to implement a hard fork change if that change is beneficial to them.

Bitcoin Miners

In the early days of Bitcoin, economic Bitcoin nodes were either nonexistent or not that important, and the roles of "full node" and "mining node" were largely bundled together. Bitcoin miners would use low-power laptop and desktop computers and did not have much of a reason to sell the bitcoin they mined to cover operational expenses. Since then, the price of bitcoin has risen dramatically and bitcoin mining has evolved to become a large-scale industrial operation. Bitcoin miners now rely on economic Bitcoin nodes to convert bitcoin into value that is then used to cover the costs of bitcoin mining. While a hard fork change will never be implemented if miners do not upgrade their software to support the change, miners will only upgrade their software if a majority of the economic Bitcoin nodes have also implemented the change.[2]

It is acommon misconceptionthat Bitcoin miners are the final decision-makers about what version of the Bitcoin software is the "dominant" version that drives consensus in the Bitcoin network. The realityis that Bitcoin miners are just one of many stakeholders which must be convinced to upgrade their software, and for game theoretical reasons are actually most likely to be the last to upgrade their software in the event of a hard fork change being introduced. Most Bitcoin miners operate on thin margins and are therefore very conscientious of their revenue and costs. They will only run software which produces blocks that are accepted by a majority of the economic nodes in Bitcoin, who in turn will only upgrade their software if the change supports the long-term value of Bitcoin and/or is acceptable to most of their bitcoin-holding customers. Coordination is therefore required among all of these stakeholders to debate the merits of proposed hard fork changes and make hard but necessary decisionsto ensure that the Bitcoin network continues to grow to support widespread usage.

Making Progress

If the Bitcoin protocol does not evolve to accommodate growing demand and new use-cases, then growth could stall and the unmet demand will be serviced by another competing network instead, potentially harming the long-term value of bitcoin and bitcoin mining equipment. It is therefore in the best interest of Bitcoin developers, bitcoin miners, bitcoin holders, and economic Bitcoin nodes to implement changes that support the growth of the Bitcoin network while maintaining Bitcoin'skey innovationas a decentralized solution to the double-spending problem.

[1]The alternate networks maynot die off if the hard fork change proposed is a change to the mining algorithm itself. In this case, there is a possibility that the miners on the old chain will continue mining and serving the users who prefer the status quo to the new mining algorithm.

[2]A hard fork change could be implemented without miner support if the change is a change to the mining algorithm itself that renders the previous network of miners obsolete.

Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to The Bitcoin Game! Did you notice a lot less show notes than usual? In an effort to decrease the number of hours put into each episode, I decided to drop the in-depth show notes.

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Some of the most popular Bitcoin services on the internet may have leaked sensitive user information, including passwords.Cloudflare is a popular content delivery network that effectively acts as a sort of digital shield, a proxy that offers millions of websites DoS protection and other services. Some of the biggest websites on the internet use Cloudflare, including several well-known Bitcoin companies, like Coinbase, Kraken, LocalBitcoins, Poloniex and moreAny data sent to and from these websites essentially passes through Cloudflare. This includes passwords, as well as cookies, authentication tokens and other sensitive information.Last week, an exploit now known as “Cloudbleed” — a reference to the Heartbleed security bug — was discovered by Google Project Zero security researcher Tavis Ormandy. A major flaw in Cloudflare’s infrastructure, caused by what is known as a “buffer overflow,” basically spilled data all across the internet. Whenever anyone requested data from a particular website or mobile app protected by Cloudflare, Cloudflare could randomly send data from completely different websites along with it.“We fetched a few live samples, and we observed encryption keys, cookies, passwords, chunks of POST data and even HTTPS requests for other major Cloudflare-hosted sites from other users,” Ormandy wrote in his blog entry.The vulnerability is significant in scope as well as length. It could have been exploited anytime between September 22 and February 20, while the period of greatest impact was between February 13 and 18. And as a potentially bigger concern, some search engines may have even cached the sensitive data as well, meaning it’s publicly available to anyone.The good news is that the odds of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands so far seems relatively small. “We have also not discovered any evidence of malicious exploits of the bug or other reports of its existence,” Cloudflare itself wrote in their incident report.However, the bad news is that there is no way of knowing exactly what data may have leaked. Users of services that may have been impacted, therefore, should assume their data is no longer secure and change their passwords immediately. (This of course also includes passwords on non-Cloudflare websites that have been used across multiple sites.) It seems less likely that accounts protected with two-factor authentication are vulnerable, though it may depend on the specific implementation; resetting it is still advisable. Those that use API keys should be reset too.Cloudflare has since patched the bug, and some search engines (like Google) are removing any such data from their caches that they can find.See this GitHub page for more websites that may have been affected by Cloudbleed.The post Using a Bitcoin Service? You May Need to Change Your Password (Now) appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

At the beginning of January 2017, we witnessed a scenario similar to that of November 2013, when bitcoin first surpassed the $1,000 mark and its rally was subsequently halted by Chinese authorities, followed by a steep price decline in the months to follow.On January 1, 2017, the price of bitcoin surpassed the $1,000 mark for the first time in three years, peaking at $1,153.86 on January 5. Almost as soon as the new three-year high was hit, it was announced that the Chinese central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), was meeting with China’s largest bitcoin exchanges Huobi, BTCC and OKCoin to discuss future regulations and issued a public warning against the risks of trading bitcoin. This was followed by on-site inspections at the three bitcoin exchanges to investigate for potential money laundering, market manipulation and unauthorized financing. This sent the price of bitcoin plummeting down back to $761 on January 12. Bitcoin Is Maturing as an Asset ClassDespite the similarity in price movements to November 2013, bitcoin is now showing signs of becoming a more mature asset class. After the initial price drop, the price of bitcoin quickly recovered to trade back in the $900s for the remainder of January and surpassed the $1,000 mark again in February, despite new regulations affecting Chinese bitcoin trading volumes. Chinese exchanges have had to stop their margin trading offerings, and all three exchanges introduced a 0.2 percent trading fee to combat overtrading, as their zero-trading fee model has been one of the key drivers of the large bitcoin trading volumes on Chinese shores. Furthermore, on February 9, both Huobi and OKCoin announced that they have halted withdrawals after the Chinese regulator threatened to close exchanges that are not complying with currency regulations as they are upgrading their KYC/AML procedures. After this announcement, the price of bitcoin dropped to $956 but recovered again to trade above the $1,000 mark two days later, showing clearly that Chinese influence on the price of bitcoin is weakening. Not only are the previously inflated trading volumes on Chinese exchanges dropping, but volatility has also reduced, due to the overall reduction in bitcoin margin trading as Chinese regulators have halted this practice on Chinese shores. New All-Time High in Anticipation of Winklevoss ETFAs Chinese bitcoin influence is lessening and the price of bitcoin is becoming more stable, bitcoin reached a new all-time high on February 23, surpassing the $1,200 mark for the first time since bitcoin’s inception in 2009. While a range of drivers can be highlighted for the current price surge, such as increased bitcoin demand from emerging markets countries, bitcoin-positive news in mainstream media, high price predictions for bitcoin by market experts and a maturing bitcoin ecosystem, the most prominent reason for the current price surge is the anticipation of the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) decision on the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF. Should the SEC approve the public listing of the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF with the proposed ticker COIN on March 11, this could potentially give bitcoin a massive boost in price if institutional investors choose to buy the ETF for portfolio diversification. If the Winklevoss ETF receives approval then it is likely that other bitcoin ETFs, such as the Bitcoin Investment Trust and SolidX, will also be approved. If institutional investors end up pouring money into these ETFs, the funds will need to purchase bitcoins underlying the fund boosting its price. Despite that the chances of a bitcoin ETF receiving SEC approval are perceived as being rather slim, the upside potential for bitcoin, should an ETF be approved, is substantial. According to boutique investment bank Needham & Company, if the Winklevoss ETF receives approval and amasses $2 billion assets under management, the price of bitcoin is estimated to reach around $3,200 per coin. Given the huge upside price potential of a Bitcoin ETF approval and limited downside as the price of bitcoin has been stabilizing, it is not surprising that more traders are buying bitcoin and, thereby, pushing up the price as bitcoin’s current risk/return ratio is positively skewed toward the upside.The post ETF Hopes and Lower Chinese Influence Push New Bitcoin Highs appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

At any given time, all markets consist of buyers and sellers. When there are more sellers than buyers, prices go down, and when there are more buyers than sellers, prices go up. Right now, more people are buying bitcoin than selling it. It’s that simple and as much as everyone will try to find reasons for the phenomenon, there does not need to be one. The most obvious reason for the rising price is being attributed to the Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF, COIN, which is due for a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decision by March 11, but may occur at any time before that date.Several USD exchanges made new all-time highs (ATHs) in price today. Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTC-e and Coinbase, exchanges that established their previous ATHs in 2013, all made new highs. Brave New Coin’s index, BLX, also made a new ATH, while GDAX, Coinbase’s asset exchange, broke its previously established high of $1,175 on January 2, as well. Gemini, an exchange owned by the Winklevoss twins, also broke their ATH. GBTC, a bitcoin investment trust that once held a large premium, which has been shrinking in recent months, has not yet made a new ATH and is now trading below spot price. The Chinese exchanges OKCoin and BTCC have not made ATHs at the time of writing this article. This suggests that demand and price action are largely driven by USD buyers. The previous OKCoin high was 8888 CNY. As per regulatory request of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), bitcoin withdrawals are currently halted on these Chinese exchanges as well. Because there is no actual resistance remaining on the chart, traders must use mathematical methods to attempt to predict a price target. It is always possible that these targets become meaningless with price entering a large parabolic leg upward until no buyers remain.Pivot points are calculated from previous support and resistance levels. For yearly pivots, the horizontal support (S) and resistance (R) levels are calculated on January 1 of each year and do not change until the next year. Currently, price is sitting just below the R1 pivot. A clean break of the R1 would suggest a reach and test of the R2 pivot at $1,400.You can see how accurate these levels have been the prior year as well. Fibonacci extensions are another way of calculating support and resistance levels based on previous price, in this case an extreme high and an extreme low.The 1.618 extension yields a target of $1,445 as a potential resistance zone. Psychological resistance can also manifest, where traders subconsciously tend to focus on factors such as:1. Round, even numbers like 1,000 or 1,050;2. Culturally relevant numbers like 666. The number four is bad luck in China, whereas the number eight is good luck;3. Comparing markets to other assets. Should digital gold, bitcoin, be worth more than actual gold per ounce?4. The now defunct exchange, Mt. Gox, had an established ATH of $1,242, which may act as a type of psychological resistance as well because bitcoin price has never been higher than this in USD terms.Summary1. USD exchanges and demand have driven bitcoin prices higher while Chinese exchanges have taken a backseat.2. Although no resistance remains beyond the ATH, there are mathematical methods to calculate the next resistance zones, such as pivots and Fibonacci extensions, which yield targets of $1,400 and $1,445 respectively.3. Bitcoin has never traded above $1,242, a Mt. Gox ATH, or above the USD price of gold per ounce.The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: New All-Time Highs Driven by USD Demand appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

I have over 5 years of experience in fiddling with different bitcoin services. And that includes cloud mining, physical mining, stake mining, trading, investing, lending etc...

Some services are not legit, so we lose our initial investment. Many of the legit ones take an awfully long time to ROI (return on investment), which can be as long as a year. Some websites just don't last long enough to give you ROI.

Here I present to you 3 ways to earn a fair amount of bitcoins quickly and safely. The earnings won't be amazing but making 0.1 btc should work out easy.

Sign up as a lender and put up 1.0 btc for loan at 15% interest (you can set higher if you want, but 15% is the minimum and is attractive for borrowers). Once someone takes up your offer within the day (depends on which timezone you are; US timezones have more borrowers and more offers taken up), you will get 1.15 btc straight into your PayPal account (earned 0.15 btc). All approved borrowers are verified by XCoins, as they have to submit their photo ID for verification.

I have already ROI on this by repeating the loan process for 7 days, and I have gotten back my initial investment. I then used my total earned interest (1 btc) for subsequent new loans, so I have nothing to lose! Imagine earning 0.15 btc everyday!

EdgeDice is a bitcoin dice game powered by MoneyPot. You can register at MoneyPot and deposit your bitcoins into the game. EdgeDice has an extremelylow house edge at 0.01%; in other words, the house has very very low advantage over you. Depending on your playing strategy, it is possible to play the game at a very low risk (1 in 1000), coupled with common techniques such as Martingale, to give a highly probable 0.1 btc earning within a single round or up to 10 days (just to be ultra-safe).

For example, you can play with 1 btc and target to make a safe 0.01 btc everyday; you should get 0.1 btc after 10days (of course, be aware this is still probability!). There's a lot of room to explore here since there is really a lot of strategies out there.

With the growing immense interest in bitcoins in China (there are more bitcoin users there, than the rest of the world combined), bitcoin prices have rose tremendously.

Sign up as an investor at BitBays and start investing in their financial assets. Their current (Feb 2017) interest rate is 12.96%, which equates to almost 1% per month (higher than any known commercial banks). In other words, you can make 0.1% of initial investment in 3 days, 1% within 30 days; and you withdraw anytime you want. I have placed 10 btc in BitBays for almost 2 years, and have been earning 0.1 btc every month!

Thursday, 23 February 2017

Maker DAO GovernanceThe decision making around forksDAOs in relation to stable value tokensThe double token model of stable token platformsCommunity diversification as it relates to application developmentThe serfdom of the attention economyBitcoin on telephone polesFriction in fundraising railsThe magic of technology

Kenny Rowe has been a part of the Maker DAO team since shortly after its inception. Initially a community organizer, Kenny has become more involved in the governance of Maker. This is the second time he has appeared on TER, the first being in early 2016. If you would like to learn more about Maker check out this episode. The Steemit article ?'?œHelp Emma fight cystic fibrosis?' can be found here.Kenny?'?s good will and spirit of experimentation is infectious, and this is a particularly meandering and enjoyable conversation.

Bitcoin was never really anonymous, and it seems the Danish police have caught on to that fact. According to reports by Danish newspaper Berlingske, law enforcement in the Scandinavian country has figured out how to apply blockchain analysis to hunt down and prosecute darknet market vendors.“The perspective is groundbreaking,” Kim Aarenstrup, head of the National Cyber Crime Centre (NC3) of the Danish National Police, told Berlingske. “Where the investigation previously hit a dead end, we can now proceed.”Blockchain AnalysisBitcoin has been presented as an anonymous digital currency for a long time. But this is not really accurate. While payments are not made to real-world identities, they are made to Bitcoin addresses that are publicly available on the blockchain. If such an address can be tied to a real-world identity, all anonymity is lost. That’s why some refer to Bitcoin as “pseudonymous” rather than anonymous.By applying blockchain analysis and combining this with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) policies by bitcoin exchanges, Danish police are able to track down darknet market users.“We are pretty much unique in the world at this point because no one else has managed to use these tracks as evidence,” Aarenstrup told Berlingske. “Everyone is looking toward Denmark in this field, and we are in close dialogue with a number of other countries right now so we can further develop methods and teach them how we do it here.”More specifically, it seems the Danish police are using blockchain analysis to close a sort of legal loophole utilized by users of darknet markets like AlphaBay and Silk Road. Contraband — often illegal drugs — are typically shipped to the home addresses of darknet customers. But if the package is intercepted by the police, the buyer can simply deny having ordered anything.Now, NC3 claims to have developed special software that applies blockchain analysis to prove that the delivery address matches a specific Bitcoin transaction. This has led to two convictions over the past few months.CybercrimeIn part due to its perceived anonymity, Bitcoin has grown to be a wildly popular payment method for cybercriminals. In a report published last year, Europol — the law enforcement agency of the European Union — said more than 40 percent of online transactions for illegal ends are made with bitcoin.Speaking to Berlingske, Aarenstrup acknowledged that the ease of use of bitcoin is a growing concern:“Bitcoin — and virtual currency in general — is widely used in the trafficking of weapons and drugs, and in ransomware and extortion cases. It is used a lot by criminals.” Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin is increasingly becoming a central point of focus for cybercrime units worldwide. Only last month, a joint initiative of Europol, Interpol (the intergovernmental organization facilitating international police cooperation) and the Basel Institute on Governance (an independent not-for-profit competence center specializing in financial crime) indicated that they would up the efforts to counter bitcoin money laundering.And Danish authorities have been paying attention to the digital currency for some time now as well. A 2015 strategic analysis report by the Danish National Police mentioned bitcoin as a key focal point to counter cybercrime.The success of the new Danish tracking method appears to have already been embraced by international organizations: both the FBI and Europol are already using the system, according to Berlingske.“I would just say to those out there in the criminal community that they need to be careful because we can follow them. They should not think they can hide from the police anymore,” Aarenstrup concluded.The post Danish Police Can Now Catch Criminals Who Used Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Tonight we talk with Brian Hoffman CEO of Open Bazaar about the latest with OB1 and its addition of Tor to the protocol.Then we talk with Daniel Diaz of Dash.org about a whole host of new features implemented by Dash like 12.1.1 and the addition of Dash to Bitcoin-India.com an exchange, mining and merchant service that is available world wide.